Gilly

For the cricket fans out there, the big story was the retirement of Adam Gilchrist. I think he timed things perfectly. He is still a good player but was showing some signs of a decline - nice that he was able to get out before being pushed out. Brad Hadden will be a fine replacement I think and deserves his chance. He is coming into the team in career best form so hopefully this will now continue for a few years.

Other than watching the cricket, this weekend involved a much less eventful trip to Naomi's ice skating and spending time with friends on Saturday afternoon. We also found the time to bake Australian animal cookies (from the cookie cutters sent by Uncle Mick and Aunty Margaret) to celebrate Australia Day. The kids especially enjoyed piling about a 1/2 inch of topping on top, which of course made them no longer resemble the animals they were supposed to...and also, pretty much make them inedible. They had a lot of fun doing it though.

On Sunday, Mindy took Naomi to the rink for some extra practice so Fiona and I baked a cake to celebrate Mindy's upcoming birthday. Later in the afternoon, we spent some time re-arranging our firewood pile from our latest delivery. As a part of this, I discovered the simple pleasure of splitting firewood. A week ago I bought a splitting maul (basically a heavy axe where the blade is a combination of an axe head, splitting wedge and sledge hammer) and also a sledge hammer (the idea being that if the maul gets stuck in the log, the design allows for you to drive it through the log with a sledge hammer). While only having small pieces to try it out on, it was quite successful and fun to do. Of course, I am sure the novelty may well wear off if presented with a significant quantity to do but it was certainly fun on the weekend. Our wood stove is working very well, proving to be enjoyable, economic and environmentally sound. Next challenge - removing the old walnut tree in our back yard that messes up our deck and thanks to the squirrels, leaves our backyard covered in hard, sharp walnut shell fragments. I plan to get the tree company to leave the wood, split it myself and let it season for next year's fire.